Mobile marketing has done a remarkable job in last few years. Read on to find out some of the predictions for mobile marketing for 2013.

Mobile has covered many strides in last year and was playing an influential role in brand marketing efforts. While earlier years were devoted for trial and error, 2013 will help marketers cement their approach. From digital coupons to mobile wallets, mobile marketing has come a long way. Let’s have a look on trends and predictions which will be lighting the way of mobile marketing in 2013-

The proliferation of smart phones and tablets will continue in coming years also, which in turn will make the mobile experience more relevant. Most of the people have replaced their laptop or desktop for browsing experiences. If you will not understand this trend then you will find yourself being left behind as web marketing has completely gone into mobile.

Mobile marketing is not a one time process as it is going to stay for a long run. Those companies who execute the same mobile marketing correctly will be able to generate greatest returns.

Mobile will emerge as an immediate search tool. Users will accept brand messages in their SMS inbox as commonplace, provided it is relevant and is related to a brand about which they truly care for. Presently, more than half of all local searches are done via mobile. The number will definitely going to rise in new year as more and more smart phone users will become comfortable with mobile searching. To stay competitive, you should ensure that you are having a mobile-friendly website and have an SMS notification list. Also, it is crucial to ensure that your business listings are up-to-date in all Google tools.

Companies will focus more on location-based strategies next year and will invest in right mobile infrastructure. Location based services are more largely depend on the interaction with people but in order to deliver the relevant local content, you would be needed to exercise good content management skills. In its absence, hyper-local and hyper-sensitive targeting becomes impossible to achieve.

The biggest change in mobile marketing will be volume of investments made by companies. Now, the channel has got recognition as a strategic part of any campaign. The real challenge will be understanding how to make an investment due to involvement of lots of activities and goals that are needed to be addressed via mobile.

2013 will become a year when every major brand will realise the importance of mobile marketing as nothing can take you more closer to your target audience than mobile phones.

Along with mobile marketing, the mobile commerce space is also witnessing a rapid growth. Companies, like, Amazon, Starbucks, McDonald’s, etc., are making use of mobile as another revenue driver. Now, mobile is no more remain any other accessory as it is now become a necessity. Mobile will play more pervasive role in online commerce. Also, cloud services will gain popularity and mobile commerce will continue to rise.

SEO is a common practice that improves upon the traffic to a website. There are few steps that the companies should take care of to attain the desired results. Quality content, accessibility, keyword portfolio, URLs, title tags, anchor tags, etc are few of them.

SEO, Search Engine Optimization is an online marketing that helps in improving upon the ranking of a website and enhancing the site’s visibility. This technique is helpful in getting traffic, which in turn, increases the chances of potential customers. The first important point that SEO expert should take into consideration is to think what user can type and then, understand the Google’s process of crawling, indexing and ranking.

Let’s throw light in the 12 steps that are needed to design a successful SEO.

Content: It is commonly said that content is king. It should be informative and useful, from user’s point of view. It should be written, understanding Google’s aim of matching the searched query with the best, unique content. If a website contains information about products, there should be detailed description and product information and the links to the related products.

Keyword Portfolio: The keywords targeted should be decided. It can be done, keeping several points in mind, whether the target customers would search it? How realistic is the query? It there enough volume for that query? Is it a competitive keyword? Who are the competitors? Google’s traffic estimator can be used to design right keyword portfolio.

Find Ability: There are few practices that should be followed, like link to the content from high traffic sites, creating sitemap, creating title, guides, lists, etc.

Accessibility: all the pages are not accessible to search engine. Robot.txt tracks the pages that should or should not be accessible.

URL structure: URLs should be descriptive and should reflect the content. Using keywords in the URLs is also a good practice.

Page Title and Headers: URLs, page titles and headers should be related. They should be short and crisp.

Meta Tags: Though they are less important than URLs, page titles and headers, but they are easy, small wins and can compact conversion by improving search result.

Anchor Tags: These tags improve find-ability, as they act as hyperlinks and they add context to the links.

Sitemaps: They are feed that intimate Google of the new pages added. It is very important, if the site is difficult to crawl, has large amount of dynamic content. It enhances find-ability, but does not improve ranking.

Indexing images: Images should be integrated into Google’s search and Google’s images. With the help of Alt tag, images can be optimized for target keywords.

The field of marketing is changing at a fast pace. Today, the mass emails have become ineffective and have been replaced by personalized PRs. Identifying relevant contacts, becoming familiar with them and communicating would be lot helpful in creating the needed publicity.

With the change of time, there are changes seen in almost every sphere of life. Marketing has also been blown up with few of the significant changes that companies need to ponder over for the needed publicity. Today, PR has become an important platform to spread the business related awareness among people in the market. These PRs have replaced mass emails that businesses used to do a large distribution list. Such mail only flood journalists’ inbox. The companies that tailor communication to specific journalists stands out and are able to capture better attention.

Social media is the growing platform, where sites like twitter carry lot information to the public. Each and every follower is important. Thus, the company should connect to each of them individually, explaining the need for them to publicize your news. The discussion or the communication should carry information about the listener or reader, information about the speaker, whether person or company, the purpose of interaction and at last, the call of action. This complete detail is must to engage listener’s attention.

The personalized PR should focus on identifying relevant contacts, becoming familiar with them and communication with them to start social engagement. Relevant contacts here mean the journalists and influencers who have recently written about the topics presented in your content. It is important to be familiar with them and at the same time, communicating with them through social means. Personalized PRs should be written on regular basis, weekly or monthly.

Another important point to be considered is to optimize the content. It should be written after close observation on trending topics, suggested keywords, links to the popular content, etc. there is no doubt that individual communication would be more time consuming, as compared to mass emails. However, it improves the chances of getting news in the publication, blogs, tweets and other social media sources.

An art of “Topic Jacking’ should be followed. It is an association between your topic, trending topic and author such that search engine discover the page easily and rank it high for the important information contained in it. Last but not the least; content marketing is an art that would be lot helpful in gaining the needed fame. Writing an informative piece of writing, such that reader get attracted and share the same on various social media sites would be lot helpful in the promotion of the business. All these points when taken seriously would surely help you create a personalized PR that would create buzz for your business.

Creating a positive image for your business is required to establish yourself in the online world. A good image reflects your commitment to quality and excellence. So, it is necessary to draft a good image marketing strategy to create a positive brand image of your business.

How To Create A Viable Image For Your Online Business?

Branding is essentially a crucial consideration for every business, irrespective of their size. Branding can be quite simple as well as exciting and large-scale but it is required that all businesses should be having a vibrant and effective online image.

Visual impressions are important- You should never make the mistake of underestimating the importance of visual impressions of your products/services. Many research results have concluded that it takes a potential buyer only few seconds after exposure to your products to decide whether they want to partner with you or not.

You require a website- A simple website is pivotally important component for creating visual impression of your business. A good website can really work wonders for you by drawing many people towards your business and telling them more about who you are and what you can do. You would be interested in creating a good impression of your business through website, so making an investment in website development is well worth your time and effort. Always remember that a successful image is the fundamental to the success of any company. A good image acts as the connecting link between you and your potential customers.

Internet and branding- The internet medium is quite different from other advertising media, like, television, radio, newspapers, etc. It is not possible to advertise businesses in a ‘traditional’ ways via the internet. Although, you would be needed different strategies for developing your online image, web media is certainly prove to be an effective place for creating awareness among people about your products/services.

How should you portray your business online?

There are lots of things which you should consider while developing your business’s online image, but below ingredients can really help to create a strong and powerful web brand-

Incorporate interactivity so that more and people can access information.

You should be sure that your online business is consistent and a single message is conveyed to your all customers. It is necessary that the branding used in the online media should be the same as featured in other communications and collateral.

Make sure your online image is accessible and appealing to your target class. Focus group testing is an effective way of measuring the impact of the ideas you have for your online image.

Try to create a unique image of your online business that separates you from others rivals.

Potential customers will instantly decide whether or not to purchase products/services from you and pursue a relationship with you, therefore, you would required to ensure that online presentation of your business is engaging, interesting and dynamic.